What makes a restaurant steak better than your homemade effort? No, it’s not the wine you ordered. It’s not the price. It’s not the sauce or the fries served on the side. It’s the fact that the chef knows how to season a steak. Really, truly season it.
A lot of home cooks are afraid of salt. Maybe it was passed down from your grandmother’s timid palate, or maybe it came from your dad’s health-conscious tendencies. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact that to make steak—or anything rich and fatty—taste good, you need to season aggressively.
The first thing you need is kosher salt. Not super-fine table salt. Not the iodized stuff. We use kosher salt (Diamond Crystal in our test kitchen) for seasoning steaks, because its crystal size allows for prime absorption into the outer layer of the steak. Partnered with freshly ground black pepper, it’s an absolute essential steak prep step.
Now, you make it rain kosher crystals on that meat. Coat both sides of the steak, and its sides, with salt and freshly ground black pepper, so a visible layer of seasoning exists on every surface. The salt shouldn’t pile up, but it should coat the meat. The steak is essentially putting on a t-shirt made of salt and pepper. A skin tight t-shirt. It’s weird, but that’s just what steak likes to wear. Don't judge.
Make it raaaaaaaaaain!
Now, seasoning a steak isn’t a one-time salting deal. After you’re finished seasoning it, searing it, letting it rest, and slicing it across the grain, there’s more work to be done. We’re going back in for another hit of salt, but this time, it will be large, flaky sea salt, like Maldon or Jacobsen. The crunchier the salt, the better the steak will be. The point here is to make sure the rosy, juicy, tender interior of the steak is every bit as flavorful and delicious as that crusty-seared exterior. Fan your steak slices out in an artful, restaurant-y way, and sprinkle the large flakes overtop. (If you don't have any flaky salt, a bit of that kosher salt will do the trick just fine.)
Now you know how to season a steak. That’s all you need to do to get your steak to taste like you paid big money for it. If you have a beautiful cut of steak, it’s not going to taste great without salt. If you have kosher salt, flaky salt, and some good old-fashioned confidence, you’re golden.
Let's get cooking!
